Packaging Jams

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How packaging works

Regular jam files (saved with the extension ".jam") refer to the samples on your hard drive, and to the folders in which your samples are located, so if you give a .jam file to someone else, they won't be able to use it unless they have the same samples in the same locations.

To help you share your jams with others, jambient provides a packaging function. Packaging works in almost exactly the same way as saving (all the elements to save and options settings work in the same way), except a package file is saved with the extension ".jmp", and when you package a jam, all the samples used in your jam are copied into the same directory as the ".jmp" file.

When you ask jambient to open a ".jmp" file, jambient ignores folder names and looks for samples in the same directory as the ".jmp" file. It also ignores any information about browse folders stored in the file.

Example: you are using F:\animals\cat.wav and F:\machine\clock.wav in your jam; you package your jam to C:\packages\coolcat.jmp; jambient copies cat.wav and clock.wav into C:\packages. You send coolcat.jmp and your wave files to your friend, who puts all the files in D:\nifty on their machine; when your friend opens D:\nifty\coolcat.jmp, jambient looks for clock.wav and cat.wav in D:\nifty.

Using jambient to Make a Package

To make a package, simply choose the jambient Package (*.jmp) file type in the drop down at the bottom of the Save As file dialogue. Note that when you click on the save button in the Saving and Open Dialogue, or take a Snapshot, a regular .jam file is saved.

Manual Packaging

The only difference between a package file and a regular .jam file is the extension. So if you want, you can dump a whole set of samples that you use into one directory, together with the .jam files that use those samples, and manually change the extension of the .jam files to .jmp. When jambient opens the .jmp it will look for the samples in the same directory as the .jmp file.